Chairman Connolly's Prepared Remarks

Thank you all for joining us today as we honor the memories of those
lost in the terrorist attacks here in Northern Virginia, as well as in
New York City and rural Pennsylvania, six year ago tomorrow.

This is the fourth year we have gathered here in Fairfax County’s own
Memorial Grove Garden to pay tribute to the heroes of 9/11 – the first
responders, co-workers, family, friends and neighbors who were among the
thousands we lost on that terrible day. Memorials like this have been
constructed throughout our community and the country to commemorate the
events of 9/11, and next year at this time, we will join with the rest of
the region and our nation in welcoming the completion of the Pentagon
Memorial itself. Earlier this morning, my colleagues and I authorized a
$100,000 contribution from Fairfax County to the Pentagon Memorial Fund.
It is one of the many ways in which we continue to pay tribute to the 184
people who perished at the Pentagon – more than three dozen of whom were
from Fairfax County.

This morning we again proclaimed September to be Emergency Preparedness
Month. Clearly the threat of terrorism is still very real as evidenced by
recent messages from our nation’s enemies, but one of the lasting
legacies of 9/11 has been the notion of being prepared for any type of
emergency, whether it is a widespread event like a terrorist attack,
natural disaster, or epidemic or an individualized event like a fire, car
crash or power outage.

On the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, it is natural for people to
question whether we are any safer or more prepared today than we were six
years ago. Let me reassure our residents, those here in Fairfax County
and across the region, we are in fact safer, more prepared and better
equipped to deal with an emergency.

Fairfax County has made strategic investments in people, resources and
time to coordinate with our regional counterparts, fortify our first
responders and communicate with citizens to ensure we are as prepared as
we can be for the unknown. For example, directors from more than a half
dozen Fairfax County agencies currently serve on regional preparedness
committees through the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. In
addition, the County Executive chairs the regional Chief Administrative
Officers Committee, and I am the current chairman of the Emergency
Preparedness Council of the National Capital Region.

The events of 9/11 tested our abilities beyond our imagination, and a
number of trying real-life experiences have helped hone our skills since
then: the anthrax attacks shortly after 9/11, the sniper attacks the next
year, Hurricanes Isabel and Katrina and last year’s flooding in
Huntington. Successfully preparing for an emergency cannot be done on
your own, nor can it be done in a vacuum. Our work with our regional
partners has yielded tremendous benefits for us all, whether it is
seamless communication between our first responders, joint training
exercises or better management of traffic. Earlier this year, Department
of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recognized the National
Capital Region for those very efforts.

In terms of resources, we continue to strengthen the capabilities of our
first responders, whether it is creating a full-time hazardous materials
unit within the Fire and Rescue Department, updating the technology used
by our police officers on the street or supporting our elite Urban Search
and Rescue Team, which currently has members responding at the earthquake
site in Peru. Even as recently as this morning, we accepted a federal
grant to pre-position interoperable radios within Fairfax County for
regional use in case of an emergency. And later this month, we will get
our first look at how the new Public Safety Transportation Operations
Center is coming along. The state-of-the-art facility is a joint venture
between Fairfax County (specifically our 911 Communications Center and
the Office of Emergency Management), the Virginia State Police and the
Virginia Department of Transportation. Having all three of us under one
roof will only enhance our cooperation on incident management and the
quality of response for our citizens.

In addition to the actions we at the County are taking, I encourage
every one of our residents to take the initiative during this month as we
focus on preparedness to re-assess the emergency plan for their families
or to create one if they have not already done so. Fairfax County is
ready to assist you with advice or deliver up-to-the-minute emergency
information through our Community Emergency Alert Network, which allows
you to receive messages via e-mail, cell phone or pager. Later this fall
we will add to our growing preparedness tool kit with the unveiling of
Fairfax County’s Emergency Radio, which can be heard on 1670 AM.

This is just a snapshot of what we in the County have been doing since
9/11 to ensure our community is prepared to withstand future challenges.
We hope to never relive those dark days, but we honor the memories of
those lost by preparing ourselves as best we can to face what lied ahead.